The Meaning of Life

Advice, Wisdom, and a Few Hard Truths

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Jason Bateman won a Golden Globe Award for his performance on Arrested Development and a Primetime Emmy for his directing work on Ozark. He cohosts a popular podcast, SmartLess, with fellow actors Sean Hayes and Will Arnett. Black Rabbit, on which he is a costar and director, is out now on Netflix.

A LITTLE HELP HERE! IT'S GETTING HARDER EVERY DAY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IN THE SAM HILL is going on in the world—and how to keep our sanity, day after day. And it's not just the politics of it all, although that part is freaking us out. There's too much social media, which isn't social at all and floods our feed with memes about how we drink too much. (You get those too, right?) Too many mediocre streaming shows, of which we watch every episode. Too much intolerance. What we all need right about now is some wickedly smart people to explain it all—the meaning of life. As a public service, Esquire has consulted with some of the smartest folks we could find and distilled those discussions into this compendium of wisdom and damn good advice. For more than twenty years, Esquire's “What I've Learned” feature has gathered insight from hundreds of people who are living remarkable lives, who help shape our culture, and who have something to say. Al Pacino, Mikhail Gorbachev, Eminem, B. B. King, Jack Nicholson, Jim Brown, Stephen King, Questlove. (They're all on classic.esquire. com. Next time you have some time to kill, may we suggest reading a few “What I've Learned”s instead of seventeen minutes of swiping and hearting?) The ten interviews collected here add to the illustrious company—Jason Bateman, Bowen Yang, Kristen Stewart, 50 Cent, and more—and we hope they help you find your way through another weird day. Gorbachev. Remember that guy? Simpler times, simpler times.

Jason Bateman

Actor, director; 56; Los Angeles Interview by Michael Sebastian, October 7, 2025 Photographs by Mark Seliger Styling by Mark Holmes